Two groups of top researchers at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine have won challenge grants from the US Department of Agriculture to complete projects aimed at combating the nation’s four-year-long outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

In North Carolina, where poultry is the No. 1 commodity, HPAI led to the loss of more than 3.3 million birds in 2025 alone. The industry contributes nearly $40 billion to the state’s economy and supports nearly 150,000 jobs each year.

“We are already doing important work that the government wants to continue,” says Dr. Kaori Sakamoto, head of NC State’s Department of Population Health and Pathobiology. “And there’s always the overarching issue of human health because avian influenza in general is so highly mutatable; there’s always the threat that it’s going to cause the next pandemic.”

The USDA awarded $1.3 million to Dr. Gustavo Machado, associate professor of emerging and transboundary diseases, and his team to investigate the main ways avian flu spreads at the farm and barn levels. 

Drs. Ravi Kulkarni, Rocio Crespo and Isabel Gimeno — all part of the veterinary college’s poultry health management group — received a $799,999 subaward to test vaccine-based control strategies. Dr. Nicholas Heaton, a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the Duke University School of Medicine, is the primary investigator. 

“The fact that we have that great relationship with incredible researchers at UNC or Duke, too, puts us in a really nice position to do work that is so important in this poultry-producing state,” Sakamoto says.

Both grants are part of a $1 billion strategy that the USDA announced in February 2025 to help curb the spread of the disease, with $500 million planned for biosecurity measures, $400 million in financial relief for farmers and $100 million to research vaccines, reduce regulatory burdens and explore temporary import options.

“This initiative was really a ‘call to arms’ for the scientific community, because this HPAI outbreak is no longer just a poultry problem; it’s a public health priority,” says Gimeno, who has been a researcher at NC State for two decades. “We’ve seen this virus move from birds to wild mammals, to dairy cows, pets and even humans. Every time it jumps to a new species, the risk of it adapting to humans, leading us to our next pandemic, increases.” 

Working with Machado will be the interdisciplinary team of Dr. Jason Galvis and Dr.  Nicolas Cardeneas, both research scholars in epidemiology in the Department of Population Health and Pathobiology, and Dr. Chi-An Yeh, an expert in fluid mechanics and professor in the NC State College of Engineering. 

Using the RABapp Approach

For the swine industry, Machado pioneered the creation of the Rapid Access Biosecurity Application or RABapp, a centralized national repository for biosecurity and movement data that has advanced our understanding of how swine viruses spread. Nearly 40 state Departments of Agriculture use the program’s data to help secure the livestock market against devastating outbreaks of diseases. More than 400 poultry producers in three states are now using the app to track poultry outbreaks as well.

“The union of the RABapp™ database with our disease spread modeling expertise will quantify the main transmission routes, uncover the role of ventilation and biosecurity in the propagation of HPAI to inform biosecurity and response strategies,” Machado said in his grant application to USDA. “This project aims to uncover the main transmission routes of HPAI to spread between and within commercial poultry farms.”

Machado says he already has data from major avian flu outbreaks from partners in Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania to use to reconstruct how those outbreaks were introduced and disseminated.

“When a farm is infected, normally, the wild birds come in or some unattended person comes with dirty clothes, dirty shoes, into the barn, and in two days, everything is dead,” Machado says. “We really don’t know how ventilation plays a role. And we don’t know how one farm infects the other. What is the major pathway of transmission? That’s what we’re going to answer.”

For the vaccination project, Kulkarni says Heaton’s Duke team will design and generate two next-generation vaccine platforms — a DNA-based vaccine and a recombinant virus-vectored HPAI vaccine — and, in a second phase, NC State will evaluate the safety and immune responses of the vaccines in layer chickens.

“Our studies will focus on determining the optimal dose, route of administration and vaccination schedule,” Kulkarni says. “The team will also assess bird growth and production performance and compatibility with existing poultry vaccines and also conduct in-depth immunological and pathological analyses.”

During a third phase at Duke, which has a high-containment Biosafety Level 3 animal facility, the collaborative team will then use controlled HPAI virus challenge studies to test how well the vaccines protect poultry.

“These experiments will examine not only disease protection, but also impacts on egg production, immune mechanisms, virus shedding and disease pathology,” Kulkarni says. “We’ll be providing critical data to inform practical vaccination strategies for the poultry industry.”

Cutting-Edge … and Viable

For NC State’s part, Dr. Gimeno will ensure that hatchery vaccinations are effective and compatible with complex immunization schedules, and Dr. Kulkarni, an expert in avian immunology, will add his pioneering work in bacterial vector-based vaccines for mass administration, Crespo says.

“Dr. Kulkarni’s expertise is essential for large-scale operations where labor and biosecurity are significant concerns,” Crespo says. “And then I bring my expertise in pathology and diagnostics and bridge the gap between laboratory breakthroughs and farm applications, ensuring poultry flocks remain healthy and productive.”

Gimeno says the grant is a perfect example of how Research Triangle Park is more than just a collection of labs in North Carolina — the proximity fosters partnerships that take translational research from basic science to real world solutions.

“When you combine the expertise at Duke and NC State, you get a solution that is scientifically cutting-edge but also logistically viable for a farmer,” says Gimeno, a professor with a Ph.D. in veterinary pathology. “And, even more, being in the RTP means we are next to global biotechnology leaders.”

When the research has concluded, Gimeno explains, the manufacturing and licensing infrastructure needed to commercialize it and get it into the field also is nearby. 

“We aren’t just doing research for the sake of research,” she says. “We are building a shield for North Carolina’s most important agricultural sector.”

For Sakamoto, the most satisfying part of her department’s recent research success is that these scientists are also exceptional teachers and mentors, influencing their fields for generations to come.

“They’re not just doing all this service to the college and the university but nationally in the organizations they’re a part of, too,” says Sakamoto, a pathologist by training. “How they juggle it all is just amazing to me. We are so lucky to have all of them in our department, truly. It’s just generally a department full of kind, generous people who take great care of their students and collaborate with each other and help each other.”

This post was originally published in Veterinary Medicine News.